Макс Коллинз - A Shroud for Aquarius

“Back in the forties,” Brennan said nostalgically, “they say Cross was tied in with the Chicago crowd.”

“Legends,” I said dismissively.

Local legends had the Chicago mob connected to Port City elements as far back as the twenties and thirties, bootlegging days, up through the late fifties, when a reform mayor cleaned out several notorious blocks in town where gambling and prostitution flourished. Meredith Wilson did not have Port City in mind when he wrote The Music Man.

“Really?” Brennan said. “Would you like to know who James C. Novack is?”

“Sure.”

“He has a couple dozen assault charges, no convictions, four murder charges, no convictions, and... well, let’s just say he has no known convictions, and leave ’er at that.”

I swallowed. “Where’s he from?”

“I’ll give you a hint. They got a lake, and they got some wind.”

“Shit.”

He prodded the readout with a forefinger. “What we suspected last night seems to be the case... Novack wasn’t no house-breaker. He was there to kill you.”

I couldn’t find anything to say to that at first; the silence in the little room was, to coin a phrase, deafening.

Finally I managed a smile and said, “A Chicago hitman, in Port City, Iowa. How can you expect me to buy that?”

Brennan’s Marlboro man mug creased in a wide smile. “You don’t have to buy it. Somebody else bought it. It’s free, far as you’re concerned.”

“And the son of a bitch is out on bail.”

“Right. But I’d guess he’s probably on his way back to Chicago by now.”

“You think he’ll show up for the trial?”

Brennan gave me a facial shrug. “It’s a crap shoot. He might skip — or he might come back ’n’ face the music. If he does, he won’t get much of a sentence — might pay him and who hired ’im to sit it out in stir.”

“I don’t believe this.”

“I would, were I you, young man.”

I rubbed the sweat off my face; it was air-conditioned in here, but I was sweating. So would you, in my shoes. “I don’t feel much like a young man anymore, Brennan.”

“You want to move in with me, for a spell?”

That startled me.

“Don’t scrape the bottom of your jaw on my desk,” he said, trying to sound gruff. “It’s an honest offer, take ’er if you like, or not.”

He lived upstairs, the whole upper floor was his living quarters, the nicest apartment with bars on the windows in town; I’d been there many times, when I was a high school kid, hanging out with his son John. Whose picture was on the desk facing Brennan right this minute.

“I may take you up on that,” I said. “I sure do appreciate the offer anyway.”

He shrugged, and somebody knocked on his door.

“Come on in,” Brennan said.

The silver-mirrored shades of Detective Evans of the Iowa City P.D. peeked in. “Mind if I join the party, gents? Just happened to be in the neighborhood...”

Brennan waved him in. Evans whipped off the sunglasses, stuck them behind the black beeper in the pocket of his white shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled to the elbow. He was again in jeans with the big turquoise belt buckle, and he pulled up a chair, flashed me his dazzler of a smile, looking blindingly white in that dark, mustached face of his, sat with one ankle on the opposite knee, showing off his new tooled leather cowboy boots, and said, “You’re in a heap of trouble, boy.”

I sighed. “Very funny.”

“Not really,” Evans admitted. “I never met a Chicago hitman. What’s it like?”

“The Vietcong, only taller.”

Evans considered that, smiling again, but keeping his teeth to himself. “My guess is this one’s tied in with Sturms.”

“Safe guess,” I said.

Brennan said, “Why don’t you fill us both in, Mallory, on the people you been talkin’ to. Then we’ll fill you in, some.”

“Well,” I said. “I can start off by saying there’s no shortage of suspects, where building a case for Ginnie being murdered is concerned. She was a wonderful person in many respects — and a not so wonderful person in a lot of others.”

And I told them most of what I’d found out.

That ex-Yippie propaganda minister, current flack-for-hire Dave Flater, had broken up bitterly with Ginnie, that Ginnie owed him ten grand, that they’d argued violently in front of his receptionist.

That Caroline Westin, Ginnie’s partner in ETC.’s, had also been at one time her lesbian lover (Brennan almost swallowed his tongue on that one) and their business dealings of late had been bitter indeed.

That Ginnie’s blubbery brother Roger had hardly been blubbering over his sister’s death at the funeral home, in fact couldn’t have been colder, and admitted having had “words” with Ginnie hours before her death, when she refused to finance his latest computer pipe dream.

That Ginnie had recently revealed to Brad Faulkner, her already emotionally distraught, straight-laced former boyfriend, that she had, back in high school days, aborted his child without even telling him she was pregnant.

“Classy lady,” Evans said.

“In many ways she was,” I said. “But I can’t defend her every act. I can only say she was a complex, intelligent, flawed human being.”

“Have you left anything out?” Brennan asked, trying to look eagle-eyed, coming off bug-eyed.

“Isn’t that enough?” I said.

Actually, I had left out one item: that Ginnie and Jill Forest had argued at the reunion. But that seemed minor, and Jill had no apparent motive, so I kept it to myself.

“What about this guy Sturms?” Brennan wanted to know.

“She was his mule. That came as no real surprise to me — I knew she’d been that at one time, and it was looking like she’d been smuggling dope for him right along—” I glanced at Evans. “—despite her assurances to the Iowa City Chamber of Commerce to the contrary.”

“Sturms is the Chicago connection,” Evans said, “obviously.”

“Right,” I said. “But that doesn’t make him anything special as a possible murder suspect. My snooping around in this thing — poking into Ginnie’s drug connections — that’s enough right there to get the likes of Novack set loose on me.”

Both men nodded.

Evans was stroking his mustache thoughtfully. “You don’t see Sturms as a prime suspect, then? Assuming Ginnie Mullens was murdered.”

I held my palms up. “Where’s the motive? Everybody and his dog’s got a motive. Everybody else but Sturms, that is. Why would Sturms kill his loyal mule?”

“Mules, dogs,” Brennan said, scowling, “forget that crap: it’s the human animal we’re concerned with here.”

“That sounds real profound, Brennan,” I said, “but I’ll be damned if it makes any sense to me.”

He shook his finger at me, not in anger. “Sturms is the key. Tell him, Ev.”

I looked at Evans and Evans looked at me.

He said, “I got a call this morning from the A-1 Detective Agency in Chicago.”

Brennan was nodding. “So did I,” he said, gravely.

“Never heard of ’em,” I said.

“It’s a major firm,” Evans said. “Anyway, they’re representing Life-Investors Mutual. They’ll be sending a man in to investigate, probably tomorrow.”

“Life-Investors Mutual?” I said, puzzled. “What’s their interest in this?”

Ev smiled on one side of his face. “Your friend Ginnie Mullens bought some insurance from them. Life insurance. Half a million worth. Of course, that’s double indemnity, in case of accidental death — which includes murder. Meaning...”

“If somebody did murder Ginnie,” I said, “Life-Investors Mutual has to cough up... good God.”